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If I just clone the C: & D: to the SSD will the laptop boot? Any ideas what the 1 thru 3 partitions are for?

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Not sure.... perhaps an image (windows snipping tool) of your Disk Management Utility would help us better understand how Windows 8 sees your drive and respective partitions, similar to the one I've attached. Be sure to resize the column headers so we can see all the information details.

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It won't boot because the system partition will be missing. It will more than likely be the 3rd partition, while the first two are OEM-specific diagnostic partitions (first just the WinRE environment, the second the diagnostic tools). Frankly, I wouldn't mess with the partition structure at all in this case; I would clone the whole drive.

Like Trouble said, without a detailed pic it is hard to know for sure, but in my opinion it doesn't change the best course of action.

Ok I'll post that when I get back home today. Would creating the HP recovery discs and restoring to the SSD instead of the HDD work? One issue with macrium is that I guess it doesn't do resizing as it says there isn't enough space on the SSD to clone the HDD.

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#1 is the recovery environment / tools that Windows 8 falls back to when it isn't bootable. I'd suggest keeping it. For example if you deleted #2, you'd need this to make your system bootable again.

#2 Is your EFI partition, this is where the EFI BIOS stores bootloaders and such so you need this else the system won't boot up.

#3 sounds like unused space, don't see it in your screenshot?

#4 is your main OS, and #5 is the recovery partition from HP.

Looks like somebody was doing something with the disk formatting previously, because it shouldn't have unused space like that nor should the disk manager show two D drives....

It sounds like you are trying to do a 1:1 clone, but Macrium Reflect can't image the disk to your SSD 1:1 because the disk itself is larger. I can't seem to find out if the free version of Macrium Reflect will let you image it to a smaller disk by ignoring the free space (I get the feeling it doesn't) I know Acronis True Image can do this (I use it all the time for SSD cloning) but unfortunately it is not free. MR's website isn't very helpful, thought I remembered a chart that showed what features the paid version has that the free version doesn't.

This is a snip tool shot of the Reflect screen. Also this is a refurb'd laptop so who knows how well the HDD was checked. I read recently that over 2/3rd's of computers returned since Win8 came out last fall had no hardware problems, they just were returned cause people didn't like Win8.
Sam

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Unfortunately the screenshot doesn't help, I've used the free version of MR myself but I couldn't find the option. Again it's probably in the paid version of the software.

You might try making an image of the entire drive, then restoring that image to the SSD. The image itself skips over the empty space and should let you restore it to the SSD. Otherwise, you'd need to find a different program or buy Acronis True Image. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software

What about using the HP Recovery disks I created? Can I just install the SSD , boot from the Recovery DVD and have it re-install Win8 that way?

I downloaded Paragon's free Backup & Restore, made a backup image but when I go to restore it to the SSD it says I have to do an individual partition by partition restore and resize the partitions that way.

Just curious. Is there any real reason to clone the HDD? I mean, surely you can just backup your data. This would be a good opportunity to make decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. You'd be surprised how much junk you have been keeping all this while. I would this a fresh install is a better option.

You can give it a shot just to be sure, but the recovery disks will probably need the information on partition #5 to actually do a reinstall.

Have you tried my earlier suggestion, to use Macrium Reflect to create an image of the drive using the free space on your drive, then using MR to try and restore that backup to the SSD?

I hate to push Acronis since I'm sure there's other ways to do this... which reminds me. Depending on how you bought your SSD it may have come with free disk cloning/conversion software. Even if it didn't you should check the manufacturer's website as it may be there for download.

Just curious. Is there any real reason to clone the HDD? I mean, surely you can just backup your data. This would be a good opportunity to make decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. You'd be surprised how much junk you have been keeping all this while. I would this a fresh install is a better option.

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Brand new laptop, no system disks, so it's either clone the drive or hope the system recovery disks will restore to a smaller drive. Though I may just put a clean install Windows 7 on the SSD as I have a copy and found some posts on HP's site linking to all the drivers I need.

Well, I had that problem once. Except that it was an old laptop where the hard drive died and the cdrom drive wasn't working either. No system disks of any kind available.

What I did was to go to the cyber cafe, downloaded a copy of Hiren's BootCD, installed it on a usb drive and the rest was easy. I booted up the old laptop with the usb drive, fired up the Windows shell, loaded up the browser, downloaded Windows 8 Enterprise, installed that on another usb drive, booted from the new Windows usb drive, installed Windows 8 Enterprise and I was good for 90 days.

What about using the HP Recovery disks I created? Can I just install the SSD , boot from the Recovery DVD and have it re-install Win8 that way?

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I may have been incorrect so you should definitely try this first regardless. I wasn't thinking, as HP does offer software to create full reinstall media, in addition to basic boot recovery & repair disks.

Well I got a deal on a Samsung 840 500Gb SSD ($340) so I decided to try some free cloning software that was Windows 8 compatibile: Paragon Backup and Restore, Aomei Partition Assistant Standard and Farstone DriveClone 9.

Paragon's can't do auto resizing, wanted me to do a partition-by-partition copy and resize during that. Would take too long so I didn't.

Aoemei's can't handle a drive with more than 3 partitons (the drive that came with the laptop has 5), so it wouldn't work.

Driveclone 9 work perfectly, asked if resize was ok and , though the cloning was a bit slow, the Sansung SSD booted right up after installing it in the laptop. It is a trial version but appears to have no crippled functions.

Oddly the Corsair Force GS SSD that I put Windows 7 on, boots and responds faster that Win8 does on the Samsung SSD (but that is still faster than the 640Gb rotating HDD that the laptop came with). But I'll give Win8 a shot but have a feeling I'll end up going back to Win7.

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